A door, opening, or portal between defined areas address the human need to satisfy different human concerns. For instance, the human concerns that are satisfied in a designated area called a bathroom are different than the concerns satisfied by an area defined by the term “kitchen”, “bedroom,” etc. The commonality of concerns that are satisfied in a particular designated space create common designations such as loading dock, fire station, garage entrance or garage exit, etc. Each designated space and its possibility of satisfaction of the concerns it is designed to address has within its possibilities inherent transparent functionality and the possibility for breakdown and malfunction where operational transparency breaks down.
To a great degree the transparent functionality of a designated space as well as the breakdown of the transparency is predictable. Because both transparency and breakdown are predictable to masterful practitioners who utilize the space, tools can be created to help manage the inevitable predictable outcomes. Furthermore, often there are multiple practitioners who utilize a space. The tools can then be designed to satisfy the concerns of different groups of practitioners. The art of successful integration then, is developing tools that satisfy concerns across a wide network of practitioners who operate in a defined space.
In previous applications and issued patents by this inventor, there has been examined a building's garage portal as an example of an opportunity to address multiple concerns for a designated space.
A specific area of interest is, for example, the shipping industry. Here there are a myriad of participants, each with their individual and sometimes overlapping concerns. Security officers deal with theft, service technicians deal with dock equipment malfunctions, shipping schedulers manage the details of shipping and deal with the logistics of moving packages and items, the public including those ordering goods wish to know where their shipment is, and dock personnel load, unload and sometimes lose or even damage goods they are handling. Systems such as bar code or RFID technology have evolved to track shipments, GPS to track the trucks, and access cards and secure locked and gated areas have evolved to address particular concerns of the participants noted above.
That is, individual and piecemeal solutions have been provided to deal with the individual concerns of the individuals mentioned above. Once any malfunction, error, mishap, theft, vandalism, crime, or other unusual event occurs, it is not possible to successfully reconstruct the available information in a readily useful and readily available form as the information is often located on different platforms that have evolved to address the different domains of concern.
The problem with the individual approach to solutions is that it lacks the coherency and advantages that might be available in well-conceived inventive integrated solutions. For instances of such piecemeal solutions, as a first example, the safety eye on the dock bay door that is designed to address door safety issues is not integrated into the camera system. A video recorder might take pictures based on motion or may constantly be generating mountains of useless data that has to be examined at length if a breakdown is identified.
In a second example, a shipment security officer is interested in the integrity of the shipments. Typically, the shipping terminal puts a device called a security seal that cannot be removed without its destruction, and which is installed on the truck doors in addition to a removable lock. However, there is no associated data when such security seal is broken, and thus the value of the security seal is limited. The safety eye on the dock door does not activate the cameras and there is no touch pad screen on a portal manager on which to enter the employee ID and security tag number that can track the event of opening the cargo door.
Turning attention to the fire station industry, here there can be a myriad of participants, each with their individual and sometimes overlapping concerns. Security officers deal with equipment theft and station security, service technicians deal with door and fire equipment malfunction, dispatch schedulers deal with the assigning equipment to various alarms; the public may show up at stations randomly, and fire station personnel must be trained, managed and their presence recorded for payroll and assignment functions. Thieves and rogue employees might steal from unattended firehouses when personnel are responding to alarms and emergencies. Various piecemeal solutions to such concerns include systems such GPS to track the trucks, access cards issued to fire personal to record or control access, doors which may be transmitter controlled, and secure areas within the station can be locked and/or gated. Video recorders and security alarm systems may be installed to record ongoing activities. However, this information is not accessible by event, and is not readily available for checking by managers or supervisors in a manner that gathers all available data into a conveniently accessible form.
As a third example of a need in the prior art, the safety eye on the station bay door that is designed to address door safety issues is not integrated into the camera system or intruder detection system. A video recorder might take pictures based on motion or is constantly generating mountains of useless data that has to be looked at if an intrusion event is identified. Other information is similarly useless, and is often unrecorded and unavailable after the fact.
As a fourth example of a need in the prior art, an outside safety loop that holds a portal door open against its timeout is not integrated into a system where the system can notify an administrator that a vehicle is blocking the exit door to the fire station, parking garage, etc. or that someone is loitering outside a portal as detected by a motion/presence detector and a message is not currently sent to a guard or security officer and in high security cases actually block the portal door from opening. There is in the prior art no way to define high, medium or low security run profiles that defines different operational formats under different security threat levels or time periods.
As a fifth example of a need in the prior art, a camera that is constantly recording will not allow individual frames to be associated with specific events. Station bay doors typically can open on individual ceiling pull command, by push button station either at the door or at the station manager desk and or on “alarm.” The doors will then often close on timer command after the fire vehicle has exited. Not uncommon is the circumstance where the safety eye is blocked, safety loop malfunctions or other event occurs where the door fails to close which leaves the station open and vulnerable to theft and vandalism. There exists a need to set an alert parameter to email, text message, or otherwise alert a fire station or security officer that a door has failed to close so specific action can be taken to address the problem.
As a sixth example of a need in the prior art, in existing rental car facility arrangements, rental cars exit the rental lot by a typical system having a barrier gate (e.g., a gate arm, “tiger teeth” plate barrier, or similar devices or combination) which is opened by an employee checking the contract and documents at the gate, or by a ticket issued at the counter which allows a single use within a determined time window through an un-manned gate. Also typically seen in such existing rental car facilities are CCTV cameras at various locations around the exit which record 24/7 to a VCR or hard-drive based recording system, with no correlation between the “event” (car exiting) and the recording. Current systems to monitor vehicle condition is handwritten notes on the contract or a small paper card on which the agent or renter marks the approximate location of any damage.
Any missed damage at checkout leads to either trying prove when damage occurred, dealing with customers trying to pass off damage caused while car was in their possession as “not their fault”, or, in the absence of any proof, paying for the repair out of profits.
Another problem is outright theft of vehicles. Boards can be placed over tiger teeth and driven over, exit personnel (sometimes third-party hired guards) might be “in on it” and open the gate, or leave their post at a certain time. Equipment breakdowns that have not been noticed yet leave gaps in the security envelope around the lot.
The gate equipment is subject to tremendous stress due to the high volume of vehicles exiting through an exit typically consisting of one to three lanes. Many locations clear hundreds of rental cars per day. In addition, shuttle buses, car carriers, tow trucks, and delivery trucks require special consideration regarding the exiting sequence to prevent damage to the equipment or vehicle.